Night Shower
by AbominableDante
Summary: Schuldig POV. This is just a short vignette, a snapshot of everyday life applied to what is commonly seen as a villain. No romance, no relationships, barely any mention of other characters. Just a fun exploration on everyday experience.


**Author's Notes: **"I ought to write something," I think to myself in the shower…

This is just a short vignette, a snapshot of everyday life applied to what is commonly seen as a villain. No romance, no relationships, barely any mention of other characters. Just a fun exploration on everyday experience. Probably a one-shot.

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**Night Shower**

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I take night showers. The others prefer to bathe in the morning, and I prefer a long time in my shower, so my schedule came out to flipping on the shower tap first thing when I got home. There is a benefit to this way for me, though, because I always get first dips when we come home from missions.

I kick off my shoes and stumble into my bathroom, twisting on the water to lukewarm and undressing as the heater kicks in. The clothes I discard go into a pile in the floor, dirty laundry not worth folding, and I take a moment to lock the door. No interruptions for me, I've seen Psycho too many times and have a housemate with a penchant for sick humor; it seems unreasonable not to be paranoid.

I step into the stall and close the glass door behind me. The light overhead is bright, and when I close my eyes I can see the red of my blood illuminated through the lids. The gunpowder reek on my skin is washed off and I scrub soap into my pores, floral, sweet, decidedly feminine, but I like it. The suds wash off, leaving my skin slick and nourished. The water rains down like a warm, liquid blanket.

I urge the water slightly hotter and lean my head back to wet and soap my hair, eyes shut again, my only vision the one of the illuminated interior of my eyelids. Fingers, my fingers, my nails scratching on my scalp, removing a day's worth of flakes and grease and whatever amount of gore it was exposed to earlier. Everything washes out with the right amount of soap, every smell is gone or masked by heady lavender or aloe, green tea or mango.

I turn the heat up and condition. Rinse and stand in the water, eyes shut, focus inward. Focus on the unwinding of muscles, so painlessly imperceptible, with an overwhelming sense of relief. It feels so amazing, my skin is an organ of pleasure; the flesh is a heady release just as good as sex. It is all I can do not to 'oh' and 'ah' at the top of my lungs. I do not sing, it would be counterproductive to my calm.

My hands turn into old-man hands, wrinkled and livid pink, my few freckles morphed to angry-looking blotches on my skin. I turn the heat up, close my eyes, and feel. Every hair in my skin rises, every tiny muscle clenches happily in response, from my cheeks to my ankles, slowly releasing until I am barely standing. Like a massage, like after climax, I am delightfully sleepy, but the water is cooling now. I twist off the tap and step out.

The towel is rich cotton (I had insisted on the softest hygienic comforts) and it soaks up the water from my skin and the humid air as I wrap it around my shoulders and grin. The excess dripping from my hair is caught in the terrycloth as I wring the orange mass out. Hair wrapped in a turban, I reach for my robe, and slip into it with a tired sigh. Silk against skin, smooth and light and cool from shoulder to calve; no wonder such things were kept to royalty for so many centuries.

I dread leaving the steamy room, hot as a sauna, bright as midday in the desert, but I must if I plan to sleep soon. Fingers unlock the door and draw it open and I slip out into the chilly air, shivering. Quickly, I pick my way past the others and into my bedroom, where I crawl under the feather-light comforter on my bed and close my eyes.

The dull ache of overexerted muscles is returning, but I am too relaxed to move, and I choose instead to find comfort in the discomfort. It is warm under my blanket, and my hair is fanned out and drying beside me, already a tangled mess, already curling and fluffing itself up to the full radiance of a lion's mane. Eyelids droop, another sigh slips out, and I am already half-asleep.

I only surface my dreaming long enough to see a pale figure, white hair and white skin, white towel and white teeth, open my bedroom door and flick off the light. He reaches out to press a warm palm to my head, and I drowse again. What a good friend, I think.

"Goodnight, Schuldig."

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_End Night Shower_

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